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    CGS Research:
Map Schematization

As a use case for the Persistent Test Bed the Centre for Geospatial Science at the University of Nottingham and the International Institute for Geoinformation Science and Earth Observation, ITC, the Netherlands are leading the map schematization use case.

Schematization is the process of simplifying map representations and is used to to reduce cognitive load required by users in map interpretation or to reduce display size requirements, allowing smaller scale simplification to be derived from detailed reference maps.

The quality of a schematic map is heuristically determined by the weighted sum of a number of constraints, including:
  1. topology - ensures that original map and derived schematic map are topologically consistent;

  2. angularity - edges should lie in horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction;

  3. minimum edge length - edges should have length greater than some minimum length.

  4. clearance - the distance between disjoint features should be greater than some minimum distance so that connectivity is apparent [Swan2007].

The schematization process then operates by iteratively perturbing vertices of the network and evaluating the quality of the resulting schematic map. This schematization process is actually just one possible application of a generic CGS optimization framework (see inset). More details regarding the framework are available on request.


This project is led by Dr. Jerry Swan and Dr. Suchith Anand.

References:
[Swan2007] Swan, J., Anand, S., Ware, J. M., Jackson, M., (2007) "Automated schematization for web service applications", Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science 4857, pp. 216-226.
Research Areas:
• Geoinformatics & Data Modelling
• Geospatial Intelligence
• Interoperability & Standards
• Location Based Services
• Semantics & Reasoning

CGS Initiatives:
• The Persistent Test Bed
• Geospatial Learning Initiative
• Reality Markup Project

Funded Projects:
• GIS4EU
• D-scent
• Map Schematization
• OS "Future Data"
• Disaster Management
• GIGAS Interoperability
• The e-soter Platform
• SWIMA
• Eye Tracking